KABUL: A bombing and a shooting attack in Kabul killed at least three people, including a deputy provincial governor, while a deputy provincial council chief was killed in western Afghanistan on Tuesday, officials said.

The attacks are the latest in relentless violence in Afghanistan even as the Taliban and Afghan government negotiators hold talks in Qatar, trying to hammer out a peace deal that could put an end to decades of war.

According to Tariq Arian, an Afghan interior ministry spokesman, a sticky bomb attached to the armoured vehicle belonging to Kabul’s deputy provincial governor killed two people, and wounded two others.

The deputy provincial governor and the apparent target of the attack, Mahbobullah Mohibi, was killed alongside his secretary while two of his bodyguards were wounded, Arian said. The bombing took place in the Macrorayan neighbourhood of Kabul.

Abdullah Abdullah, chairman of the High Council for National Reconciliation, condemned the attack and said the recent increase in attacks across the war-torn country is a clear enemy of the Afghan peace process.

Sima Samar, special presidential envoy and state minister for human rights, tweeted that the “people are tired of terrorist attacks every day”.

Samar also urged the Taliban to agree to a ceasefire to stop the killing and more bloodshed.

Also in Kabul, gunmen shot and killed a police officer and wounded another policeman, said Ferdaws Faramarz, spokesman for Kabul’s police chief. An investigation was ongoing, he added.

In violence elsewhere, a deputy provincial council head in western Ghor province was killed while another council member and their driver were wounded when a sticky bomb attached to their vehicle detonated on Tuesday, said Arif Aber, spokesman for the provincial governor.

The slain council chief, Abdul Rahman Atshan, was the apparent target of the attack, which took place around noon in the provincial capital of Faroz Koh.

No one immediately claimed responsibility for the Kabul or Ghor attacks. The militant Islamic Sate (IS) group has claimed responsibility for multiple attacks in the capital in recent months, including horrific attacks on educational institutions that killed as many as 50 people, most of them students.

The Taliban have waged bitter battles against IS fighters, particularly in IS strongholds in eastern Afghanistan, while continuing their insurgency against Afghan government forces.

Separately, the Afghan defense ministry said on Tuesday the army repelled a Taliban attack in the district of Arghandab, in southern Kandahar province. At least seven Taliban fighters were killed, it claimed.

On Monday, the ministry announced authorities were investigating reports that an alleged air strike over the weekend killed around a dozen civilians, including children, in Arghandab.

Published in Dawn, December 16th, 2020